Hi, could I please get a clarification on how to best conduct a Closed Beta testing on Epic Games Store before releasing the game publicly?
The problem I’m finding is regarding the Access Keys.
Testing-type Keys require users to be members of the developer organization (a big hassle + exposes some developer tools), while Press/Promo and Retail Keys don’t seem to serve that purpose.
There are Play Groups that you can give game access to but it requires collecting Epic IDs from each participant which is also quite unappealing.
1) Is there any other way to just distribute Game Keys that would by themselves give access to the game in Closed Beta?
2) Additionally, would you be able to confirm if the native e-commerce EGS Checkout overlay in Dev environment uses Sandbox servers and doesn’t take real world money? Can the purchasing flow be tested fully there? If so, are we supposed to reset the Entitlements after purchase and synchronization with the game’s backend? I fear the scenario where I’d be checking Entitlements on game launch and awarding the user with incremental items endlessly.
3) Lastly, can you use EGS Checkout to sell Offers defined in EGS dashboard when the game is published to a different store, like Itch, in particular?
Hey! I can help with the second and third items, investigating the first one.
For purchase flow testing, we have a doc we are working on getting uploaded on this topic but you are correct, if you are making purchases in the dev and staging sandboxes they should not be charged real world money.
What we do not have today is the ability to reset entitlements after purchase. For consumable goods, this isn’t too much of an issue as part of the intended flow is to have the game redeem those entitlements. Durable goods however, would be one and done once claimed for the time being. It is a feature we are looking to add in the future in some form.
For your third question, you could use EGS checkout to sell offers defined in the EOS backend on other storefronts. It basically just loads and routes that purchase through the epic storefront in game and could be used for that purpose. Just make sure you are still logging in with an Epic account and loading the overlay as those things are required to have the checkout flow work in game.
Thank you so much for replying! It means the world to me.
As I’m fighting for survival and getting really desperate here, I saw a colleague of yours offering c++ code to help implement OnlineSubsystemEOS, and was wondering whether I could ask for the same regarding the Entitlements subsystem implementation? Literally anything could help!
I already purchased the Redpoint Online Subsystem plugin but it doesn’t support e-commerce yet and it’s been a very long time since people started asking for it and there is just no hope anytime soon. I should let you know that there is currently not a single Marketplace plugin that supports EOS + EGS services fully!
So far, I’m able to retrieve my offers, go to Checkout, select payment method, attempt to pay, and go to the Thank You page. I need a working flow to make sure I can legitimately go ahead and synchronize the purchase with my Playfab backend. (I’m actually able to do it using Xsolla payment provider because it does the synchronization behind the scenes, however, I really want to have Epic’s native purchasing.)
And since selling in-game items is such a core functionality to be able to publish the game , I feel like we shouldn’t each be reinventing the wheel and Epic should help a little bit more in facilitating this e-commerce subsystem, in particular.
So if you could, please, kindly share any of your code that could help me QueryEntitlements and anything else that is crucial in making these purchases secure, you’d be saving my life. I’m begging.
Unfortunately, we don’t have such code available for sharing today. The public documentation should cover the core workflow to follow:
and you can also reference the Store sample app that is included with the EOS SDK. If you have specific issues about how to Query or redeem entitlements after purchase please feel free to reach out and we can answer your questions on that.
Responding here in addition to your DM so more people can access the answer in the future.
For a Closed Beta, leveraging a Player Group would be best. If your product uses EOS, you must have an EAS application configured, approved, and added to your artifact.
Configure your Player Group to grant access to the Dev and/or Stage sandbox and include access to any relevant deployments for this Player Group. If your game uses EOS and a deployment is not included, players may encounter error when trying to play your game.
Next, you’ll need the Epic Account IDs of the players you want to add for your Closed Beta Player Group. Once they’re added, send them a key granting access to the Dev/Stage sandbox build. They’ll need to redeem that key through the EGS launcher. If a player redeems a key before being added to the Player Group, they’ll likely not see the game in their library. To fix this, they will need to redeem a new key.
Another way a Closed Beta could be accomplished would be to have the game in the Live sandbox and distribute keys for that build. So long as the purchasable date is future-dated, no one would get access to the game that doesn’t have a key. This method gives you less access control than a Player Group and may not be ideal for everyone.
I can confirm adding the Deployment to the PlayerGroup has indeed allowed my test account outside the dev org login just fine! I completely overlooked that option!
@EpicGames please give this man a raise! Actual attention to detail and great customer care, can’t thank you enough for clarifying this riddle once and for all!
Also looking at doing something similar in terms of hosting a closed beta. First time working with Epic Store. What would be the best way to get the Epic Account IDs for all the users that we want to be a part of our Beta group?
The best method would be to request the Epic IDs with your Beta Signup form(s). To ensure they provide you with the correct information, you can guide them to login and look at their account information page.
We’re also trying to do a closed beta test on EGS for the first time.
What is the maximum number of players in the Player Group for the beta?
And if we also have to generate Acceess Keys, can we revoke those generated keys after the test is done, because I saw 5,000 is the limit of Access Keys?
I am also interested in the answer to this question - if we’ve used testing keys in the live sandbox, how do we revoke them after the test is complete?
There is no actual limit to the amount of access keys you can have, but over 5,000 will require it to be approved by the Epic Team to ensure that the request was legitimate. When doing so you can leave a note for our team to advise why the amount of keys is required. Those requests are typically reviewed and approved/denied within 24 hours.
